


A Penny For Your Soul

by cairistiona13



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Arranged Marriage, Chains, Collars, Demons, Humiliation, Immortality, Immortals, Invisible Chains, M/M, Magic, Master/Slave, Mildly Dubious Consent, Non-Consensual Kissing, Rape/Non-con Elements, Situational Humiliation, Slavery, Slaves, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 09:33:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6112375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cairistiona13/pseuds/cairistiona13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Yixing is sold to a demon to fund his father’s alcohol addiction, he never expects to like him. But Yifan’s attempts at being a human boyfriend are actually kind of cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Penny For Your Soul

**Author's Note:**

> _mrghpfff_ (aka the approximation of the sound I made upon reaching the halfway point of this fic)

Zhang Yixing has lots of hopes and dreams. He wants to go to South Korea, because he likes what little Korean food he’s tried, and he’s heard it’s really pretty there. He wants to dance—maybe to go to a dance university. He wants to become a popstar; he’s always loved singing, and he thinks that dancing as a profession would be great. He wants to travel the world, to meet beautiful girls and beautiful boys and to take photos everywhere he goes as proof. He wants to marry his best friend Lu Han, who is a guy, and who doesn’t like him that way, but he’s sure one day he can convince Lu Han it’s a good idea because they’re both single and it’s not like either of them have women falling at their feet (he’s too stoic and Lu Han’s too cutesy).

What he doesn’t want is to be _sold_ , by his _father_ , at seventeen years old.

He’s always known his father has problems with alcohol. He started when Yixing was little, before his mother died, and it only grew worse after she did. Yixing has spent his years doing housework; cleaning, cooking, doing his homework under the light of a torch at the very end of the day when his father had passed out from the drink. His one solace is his father wasn’t a violent drunk. A happy, stupid one, but he never hurt Yixing, and for that Yixing is glad. His childhood could have been better but it could have been a lot worse.

His life did get worse though when he was forced to drop out of school to look after the house and get a job full time to support his father’s addiction and he’d thought that was the worst of it. When he’d turn eighteen he’d be able to leave, to get away—forever.

But he doesn’t make it to eighteen and freedom because one day, when he’s seventeen and a half, he comes home from his job stacking shelves in the local supermarket to find a strange man standing in his sitting room. He’s tall, over six feet, and has dark blond hair in spikes. He also has a rather intimidating look on his face.

“Excellent!” Yixing’s father says, in a voice Yixing knows means his father is sober for once. “Yixing, come in.”

Yixing slides his shoes off unsurely, leaving them carefully by the door, and then pads over in Hello Kitty socks, feeling the man’s eyes run over him in a way he thinks is quite unnerving, and a bit uncomfortable. Closer, he can see the man can’t be too much older than him—more of a boy than man, if anything.

“Yixing, this is Wu Yifan,” Yixing’s father says, smile wide and clear in his voice. He looks innocent, but something tells Yixing to be on his guard. “This is who you’ll be living with from now on.”

It sounds perfectly innocent when his father says it like this, so Yixing knows it isn’t. “Um, hello,” he says quietly, not sure how he should go about this.

“Hello,” Wu Yifan replies. His voice is deep, gravelly and commanding, and so different from Yixing’s softer, higher pitched voice, that Yixing nearly jolts. He’s never met anyone who sounded like this before. His voice is so deep he almost growls his words. “Nice to meet you.” It takes Yixing a moment to process this, because when he says more than one word, they kind of string themselves together into one long, slurred, word.

Yixing bows his head in agreement, not really able to say anything, because it isn’t nice, his father’s just told him he’s living with a stranger. Six months more and he’d have been free. It isn’t a nice feeling. It’s more like the carpet has been ripped away from beneath his feet.

“Would you like to get your belongings?” Yifan asks in a way that Yixing thinks is _probably_ Yifan trying to be kindly, but it’s quite terrifying and abrupt all the same, because Yifan only has one facial expression and one voice tone. Yixing nods in an almost panicked way and runs to his bedroom. There’s a tiny suitcase outside the door, which he takes in with him.

He doesn’t have a lot of belongings, because he learnt quickly that his father was _not_ above selling the clothes off Yixing’s back in order to gain alcohol. In fact, until he was old enough to go to school, Yixing was pretty sure he only had one summer and one winter outfit, because all of his other clothes had been sold. Yixing sometimes uses the money he works for to buy things he needs, like a sewing kit to darn holes in important clothing, and rarely a book to read, but it mostly goes on food or the upkeep of the house; bills in particular.

He takes his meagre amount of clothing and puts it into the suitcase, and then stores the few books he has, and his photographs. He has a stuffed sheep his mother gave him as a baby that he managed to conceal all these years, and that’s it. He has no music player, no other toys, nothing special. His room contains a bed and a box of built-in shelving, not even a wardrobe; the bare minimum. He zips up the suitcase and then heads out.

Yifan hadn’t entered the room, but Yixing is sure that he watched him work. He wonders if it’s strange to the other boy to see him like this; a teenager with nothing. Then again, this boy is taking him away from his home, which has to be strange enough.

Yixing doesn’t understand. The one thing he’s sure of is that he’s not going as a guest. If anything, the way the boy is looking at him suggests he’ll be working for him—and not in a nice employee way. But Yixing doesn’t really think about this. He heads to the door and pulls his shoes and coat on, before turning to his father.

“You’ll be a good boy for Yifan, won’t you?” his father asks as if he’s six years old and needs to be told.

Yixing nods obediently, because at least he’s getting away. That’s one relief.

“Goodbye, Yixing,” his father says, and Yixing nods.

“Goodbye,” he replies, knowing that it’s for good.

Yifan takes him by the shoulder and they walk through the front door to—

Well, Yixing wasn’t expecting that.

Beyond Yixing’s front door is, for some baffling reason, not the outdoors. Not the street he knows should be out there. Not the redbrick walls of the corner-shop across the road. Not the noise of traffic he knows so well.

No, on the other side of the door is another door. A large, red door, to be precise, with the number ‘12’ pinned up in gold metal. Yifan opens this door once they’re still inside Yixing’s house, and leads Yixing through, hand still uncomfortably warm on his shoulder. Once inside, he shuts the door.

The inside of the building is probably very nice, but Yixing wouldn’t know. He’s too busy blinking repeatedly, the shock of witnessing some sort of magic getting to him.

“I’m back!” Yifan calls into the house as he tugs his shoes off. Numbly, Yixing does the same, resting his suitcase against the wall as he does so.

“Excellent!” a voice says, a very familiar voice, but no, that’s not—

And then Lu Han’s there, standing before him. He’s wearing an apron. It’s a very strange look on him.

“Lu Han?” Yixing says, slightly dumbly.

Lu Han stares.

“You know him?” Yifan asks, and Yixing isn’t quite sure which of them he’s asking. Yixing’s eyes haven’t moved from Lu Han’s face. Part of him is impossibly glad that he’ll be living with his best friend, and the other part of him is confused, because it doesn’t look like Lu Han knew about this at all. And that worries him.

“Yeah, from school,” Lu Han says, and then he turns away to Yifan. “It won’t get in the way.”

Yifan nods, and waves him away. Lu Han leaves. Yifan turns back to Yixing. “Your father,” he begins, slowly and carefully, “sold you to me. You are now my property.”

“…Sold?” Yixing asks quietly, and Yifan nods. Yixing doesn’t ask how much he’s worth. He thinks he’s better off if he doesn’t know.

“Your father said you cleaned your house, so you can be the live-in housemaid,” Yifan says brusquely, and he folds his arms.

“What should I do about my jobs?” Yixing asks softly. Yifan looks at him like he’s an idiot.

“Consider it dealt with,” he says, and snaps his fingers. Yixing isn’t sure how clicking his fingers can help him, but then again, how should he explain the way they arrived at this house? “You are my slave,” Yifan continues, and then he turns away from Yixing and begins searching through a desk that’s by the wall, opening drawers and lifting papers out. “Your job is to clean the house. You do not need to cook. You will be fed. And you cannot leave.” He finds what he’s looking for and pulls it out, keeping it hidden from Yixing’s view.

Yixing frowns. “What’s to stop me from leaving?” he asks, and crosses his arms.

Yifan smirks, and moves closer to him. Before Yixing can blink, Yifan clasps something around his neck. He reaches up to feel it. It’s thick and leathery, and he moves to look into the mirror hanging above the desk. A dog collar.

Yixing tries to undo it, fingers grappling with the leather, growing more and more frustrated and panicked as he realises that there doesn’t seem to be a fastening. He’s trapped in the collar.

“It won’t come off,” Yifan says. He’s been watching Yixing panic, his smirk strangely frozen but still present, and Yixing feels his eyes burn with frustrated, embarrassed tears. He blinks them away, but he doesn’t think it’s possible to feel more humiliated than he does now, buckled into a leather collar. He feels submissive and completely like he doesn’t want to be. He wants to fight. He doesn’t want to give into this. “And if you try to leave through any door or window in the house without my permission, it’ll shock you. It won’t be pleasant.”

Yixing’s mouth opens in silent horror, and he tries to tug on the collar, force it away from his skin. Then there’s a jolt of pain that runs down his throat and body, and he drops to the ground, his knees giving up on supporting him. He kneels there for a few moments as the horror of the situation sinks in. He’s trapped in this building with a Lu Han who’s going to ignore him and this, this—

“What are you, a demon?” he chokes out.

Yifan’s expression is bizarre. It’s a mixture of smirking, confusion, and worry, all rolled into one, but Yixing can’t really define it. He settles for thinking that the smirk is winning. “Yup,” he says. He puffs himself up a bit like a proud budgie. A scary and demonic proud budgie. “I’m the strongest and the most wanted of all the demons.”

“Shouldn’t you be red and have a tail?” Yixing mutters, frowning, not entirely sure he believes Yifan.

“No, that’s the Devil,” Yifan corrects with a wave of his hand. “Though I could add a tail if it’d make you feel better?” And not a moment later a thick, sharp-ended tail appears from behind him, curving itself around Yifan’s legs.

Yixing thinks he’s going to pass out. “N-no,” he says, because it seems to be the best thing to say right now, “that’s okay, I believe you.” Well, it kind of makes sense, at least.

Yifan nods, and the tail disappears. “Come with me,” he says, and then begins moving down the hallway, socked feet quiet on the wooden floor. “Bring your suitcase.”

Yixing scrambles to his feet, trying to forget about the humiliating collar, grabs his suitcase from where he’d leant it, and runs after Yifan.

\---

It’s dismal work. Yixing wakes up at five in the morning, gets dressed, has a small meal in the kitchen where Lu Han works—thankfully not ignoring him—and then he cleans the house.

The house is enormous. It has four floors, not including the attic and the basement. Each floor has an endless supply of rooms and they seem to grow bigger and in number each day. It takes Yixing two weeks to clean the house, and even then he’s not allowed to touch the kitchen. He’s also not allowed in Yifan’s bedroom. Yixing doesn’t know why, but he also doesn’t ask.

However, he is allowed in Yifan’s en suite bathroom, which appears to be laden with beauty products of every sort. Yixing sorts them into different categories, boxing them up to give him space to clean, and absently thinks that he knows a lot of girls who would be incredibly envious of Yifan’s collection.

“I suppose that’s why his face is so perfect,” he muses aloud, and then gets back to work.

During those two weeks, Yixing barely sees Yifan. He always seems to be away, and when he isn’t away, he—well, if Yixing didn’t know that was a silly thought, he’d think Yifan is avoiding him deliberately. Yifan seems to turn away if he sees him, making excuses to be somewhere else. But Yifan is a demon, and a pretty powerful one, Yixing realises fairly quickly. It makes no sense that he’d avoid a normal human. But Yifan is barely around.

This doesn’t really affect Yixing. If anything, it allows him to work more freely. He doesn’t really like Yifan, after he bought him, attached a collar around his neck and made him into a slave. The freedom of not having his… _master_ …watching over him at every minute means Yixing is able to sing and dance as he works, entertaining himself. He even, on occasions when Yifan isn’t expected back for several hours, sits in one of the rooms in the left wing of the house and reads a book, or heads down to the kitchen to chat to Lu Han. They slot straight back into their friendship, Yixing mock-flirting with Lu Han and Lu Han playing along as always.

They don’t mention that Yixing is a slave and they don’t mention what Lu Han is at all. Yixing doesn’t know if Lu Han is a servant or another demon or a friend or—he has no idea what Lu Han is at all. He doesn’t know where Lu Han lives, or sleeps, or what he does when Yixing isn’t there, because he certainly doesn’t spend all his time in the kitchen. But Yixing doesn’t ask what he does.

He tends to avoid the kitchens when Yifan is around, knowing that he’d be angry knowing they talked when Yixing, at least, should be working, but one day Yixing is down there looking for something to clean the windows with, and he hears the two of them talking. He’s going to leave quickly before they can see he’s there, but something glues him to the wall and makes him listen.

“When are you going to tell him, Yifan?” Lu Han asks, and Yixing doesn’t need to see his face to know the expression he’ll be sporting, eyebrows drawn, face frowning. He’s probably got his arms crossed as well.

“Never?” Yifan offers.

Yixing hears a sigh. “Yifan, you’ve _got_ to tell him. For other reasons than the fact it’s not fair on him. There are so many things wrong with this, you know. You’re not even honouring your side of the deal.”

“I know,” Yifan agrees, and he sounds sad, almost, and apologetic. Yixing wonders what’s happened to make him sound so—so _human_. “I just—you know.”

“He deserves to know,” Lu Han says.

“He’ll hate me,” Yifan argues.

“He already hates you,” Lu Han says. “That’s what happens when you freak out and make people do stupid things because your head isn’t screwed on properly. If you’d just told him the truth in the first place, none of this would have happened.”

“ _You_ try having to tell someone they’ve been sold; see what you come up with. I’ve never had to deal with that before. I just—I blanked.”

Yixing freezes. Are they talking about him? Are they saying that he’s—he’s what? Yifan didn’t tell him the truth?

“I am stuck in a kitchen, because _someone_ is a jerk, so nobody is selling their daughters to me,” Lu Han argues, “though as your older brother I feel like I should already have several wives given to me in various offerings. There should be sacrifices made to me. I feel cheated that you get a wife before I do.” There’s a pause, and then, “Well, sort-of wife.”

 _Stuck_ in a kitchen? Yixing hasn’t thought Lu Han stays there at all, but maybe he does.

And then the rest of his words filter into Yixing’s brain. He feels things click into place, but abruptly ignores them in favour of boggling over the fact that Lu Han isn’t a servant, or a worker, or even just a random person, but Yifan’s _brother_. And not just his brother but his _older_ brother. How old is Lu Han? He’s thought he was eighteen, but if he’s older than Yifan—?

And if Lu Han went to school, why didn’t Yifan? Because he’s almost positive that he’d remember if Yifan had been there, and he didn’t. It’s possible Yifan could have gone to another school, but why split the brothers up? Yixing is so confused.

He can’t ignore it for too long, the elephant in the room, and he has to clamp his mouth shut with his hands, biting his lips, so he doesn’t explode so that they can hear him.

 _Wife_?

They surely can’t be talking about him. He is not a wife. He doesn’t have the womanly parts for wifehood, nor does he feel at all wifely. And there’s the glaring fact that he has been nothing but a slave—not even a servant but a _slave_ —for two weeks whilst Lu Han kept his mouth shut about this and Yifan was away doing whatever he does when he’s away.

But how many people have been sold to Yifan lately? Yixing can’t think that too many people have stupid fathers like his who’d sell their children for a lifetime’s supply of alcohol, or whatever it was that Yifan exchanged for him. He still isn’t sure why Yifan consented to the trade. If he’d wanted a housemaid he could have just got one, and not essentially bought one.

And everyone knows the fairy-tales about demon brides. People who are sold to demons and get made their wives. _That’s_ nothing new.

Yixing scrambles away from the door as quietly as he can manage, not wanting to hear any more, because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to take it. He doesn’t want to know.

Once he’s far away from the door that they won’t hear, he runs upstairs, throws himself into scrubbing the floors extra-hard, because he doesn’t have the window-cleaning material he’d gone down to get, and tries to forget.

\---

Three days later, Yifan calls him into the sitting room and asks him to sit down. Yixing perches nervously on the edge of the sofa as Yifan paces back and forth, hands clasped behind his back.

Finally, Yifan opens his mouth, “Well,” he begins, and Yixing can hear a tone so different from the one Yifan had in his voice that first day. That one was of arrogance and control, but this one is laced with nerves and fear. “I…I wanted to apologise.”

Yixing freezes, fear making him mute. They can’t be talking about this. _No_.

“I have not been entirely honest with you,” Yifan continues, and his fingers flex behind him. “You were sold to me, that is true, but not to be my slave. I thought—I thought maybe letting you do what you were used to would help you settle in.” He looks uncomfortable. Yixing finds that it suits him more than arrogance. He looks more natural like that, and less inhuman. He looks like a worried child.

At the same time, the words out of his mouth speak clearly that Yifan has never really been around humans before. Yixing is positive now that Yifan never went to school. Because no human would ever think making someone their slave would make them feel more comfortable.

And Yixing is sure that Yifan hadn’t been thinking about making him comfortable when he smirked and attached the collar around his neck, the one that would electrocute him if he tried to leave.

It’s that thought that brings Yixing to his feet. “No,” he says. “You didn’t want me to be comfortable or you’d never have put this collar on me.” He points up at his neck, drawing Yifan’s glance. “You were laughing too much at the time,” he continues, grimacing. “So I don’t believe you.” And then he shakes his head. “And whatever it is, I don’t care. You made me your slave, it’s done. I have cleaned the house for you from top to bottom. I did my job.” He spits the words like they’re acid. Yifan grows greyer with each word.

“I’m sorry!” Yifan says. “I don’t know how to deal with humans. I just wanted you to be comfortable before I told you why I bought you.”

This confirms Yixing’s suspicions, but doesn’t soften his anger in the slightest. “Maybe you should have learnt how to before you took me in!” he snaps. There is no fear in him that he’s shouting at his master who is also a demon. There is no fear in him that Yifan might do something to him. He doesn’t know why, but he’s completely unafraid, unlike he was two weeks ago when Yifan first laughed at him. Now he’s just _angry_. He clenches his fists beside him and shouts up at Yifan. “Look, you stupid demon, I’m not a bloody _dog_. And I’m not a slave either. You need to actually learn how to deal with people if you want them to listen to you! I don’t care why you bought me. I don’t care what you bought me for. I just want you to treat me like a _human_.”

He can see his words hammer themselves into Yifan, who seems to shrink at each hurled sentence, cowering into himself. “You don’t care?” Yifan asks quietly, almost meek, but without the humanness to actually manage meekness.

“No,” Yixing says, and he crosses his arms. “I don’t care if my father sold me to be your slave or your employee or, I don’t know, your _lover_.” He shakes his head with each word, ripping one arm away from his body to flap at Yifan. “I don’t _care_. I just want to be free of this stupid collar, to be free of you, to be free of this place. I just want to go to university, I just want a place of my own. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I never asked to belong to someone, I never asked for my father, I never asked—” He feels himself break down even through his anger. He’s falling apart. He never meant to go into this with Yifan.

“I just wanted you to stay with me,” Yifan says.

“You could have just _asked_ ,” Yixing shouts, tears burning his eyes. “You could have given me a _chance_.”

“Would you have stayed?”

Yixing shrugs, because at the moment he’s so angry and upset he doesn’t know what he’d have done back then.

“What if I take it off now?” Yifan asks.

“It’s too late, you stupid demon,” Yixing tells him, “I’m already angry!”

“But—maybe we—?”

“No!” Yixing says, and shuts his eyes for a moment as he presses a hand to his forehead, feeling an ache grow there with all his shouting. “No more, just stop, I’ve had enough—”

And then he’s stopped.

By Yifan’s mouth.

He hadn’t seen Yifan come closer, so he hadn’t been able to stop it. Yifan’s mouth against his is soft, gentle, and Yixing feels his protests swallowed up.

It takes him another moment to realise he should be protesting this kiss, and he shoves Yifan away from him and sinks onto the sofa behind him, numbly. He feels…peculiar. He isn’t sure if it’s because that was his first kiss, or whether it’s because his first kiss was with a _demon_.

“Yixing?” Yifan asks, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. Yixing doesn’t stir, even as he hears Yifan call for Lu Han.

“What did you do?”

“I just—he was talking, so to shut him up I—”

“Yifan! That is not how humans stop each other talking!”

“It…isn’t? You mean the dramas I watch were lying to me? The guy always does that to get the girl to shut up.” He sounds confused and worried and Yixing almost wants to see his facial expression. Almost.

“Yifan! You really _are_ a stupid demon,” Lu Han says, and Yixing feels a faint smile grow on his face as he slowly becomes re-aware of the world around him, jolted out of his bizarre stupor by something he can’t even explain.

He watches them for a few moments, not letting them see. Lu Han is smiling fondly, if mockingly, at Yifan, who looks abashed, holding himself like a little embarrassed child. Yifan has entirely lost his composure, and it’s amazing to see. Until today Yixing hadn’t been aware Yifan had facial expressions that weren’t “stoic” or “smirking”. He’s actually rather fond of this one, though he’s never going to admit it aloud (or to Yifan).

Then he remembers he’s angry and he folds his arms and frowns.

“I think your human’s back,” Lu Han says cheerfully and pats Yifan on the shoulder. “Sorry about my brother, Yixing, he’s hopeless when it comes to humans. You’re supposed to be his—”

Yifan makes a whining noise in the back of his throat and covers Lu Han’s mouth with one of his extremely large palms. Lu Han makes a choking noise and narrows his eyes.

Yixing also narrows his eyes, but at Lu Han. “You!” he says, pointing at the older boy, his supposed best friend. “You could have told me!”

Lu Han flaps his arms until Yifan lets go. “I couldn’t! I may be older but I’m not the man of the house and I can’t interfere in things—” and he dances out of Yifan’s reach to crow, “—like his _betrothals_ to small human boys!”

Yixing mentally protests the term ‘small’, considering he’s the same size as Lu Han, sort-of.

Yifan flaps his arms pathetically. Yixing almost thinks it’s cute. Almost. He turns to Yixing, a small pout on his face. He’s over six feet tall. The pout looks utterly ridiculous, and misplaced on his face. It twitches, as if he doesn’t do it often, as if it’s out of character for him. “I’m sorry!” he says, for the umpteenth time. “Your father betrothed you to me.”

Yixing blinks at him. He’s known for three days, but it doesn’t make the knowledge any less worrisome. “I’m not a woman,” he says.

“I know,” Yifan says.

“I can’t have children,” he continues.

“Well, actually,” Lu Han says. Yifan kicks him.

Yixing narrows his eyes until they are slits and continues with, “All I can do is _clean_. And dance,” he amends thoughtfully. “I would be a terrible wife, or whatever it is I’m supposed to be. Maybe I should stay your housemaid?”

Yifan opens his mouth, possibly to protest, but Lu Han cuts him off. “Can’t you at least be Yifan’s date for the house-party I’m throwing on Friday, before you refuse?” he asks innocently from the corner of the room he’s thrown himself into. “I thought, well, this house is clean and shiny now! So why not invite all our demonic friends and have some fun? And fun requires dates!”

Yixing stares at Lu Han in bewilderment. “Um,” he says.

“Um,” Yifan echoes.

“Excellent,” Lu Han says, and he claps his hands together, “because I sent the invites out last week.”

Yixing is suddenly glad that Lu Han never consented to a date with him.

\---

Yixing doesn’t manage to get out of Lu Han’s party and he finds himself in the older ~~demon~~ boy’s clothes—some kind of flowing shirt monstrosity and jeans that are so tight he feels the world stare at his arse (especially a tanned boy in a see-through shirt who doesn’t seem to want to stop)—hanging off Yifan’s arm. It’s not exactly where he wants to be, but it’ll have to do, because there are far worse options.

Yifan has spent the week trying to make up for his gross crimes by being extra nice to Yixing. He hasn’t forced Yixing to clean a single thing (which doesn’t mean Yixing hasn’t cleaned things of his own accord) and he’s tried to include Yixing in all conversations. He even, at one point, offered to pay for Yixing to go to an Arts University.

Even better, he’s taken the collar off. Yixing had soon realised that Yifan hadn’t been joking when he offered to remove it. He’d genuinely seemed to think the collar was a good idea.

Yixing has spent the time since it’s off thinking he can probably make a run for it, but something pulls at him, stopping him, and that’s why he’s made it to this stupid party without escaping.

Well, it’s not really that stupid. Yixing’s never been to a party before, but he’s read about some, and he’d imagine that this is on the scale of ‘upper-class posh ball’ rather than ‘head-banging club night’. He doesn’t even think it counts as a house-party, except that it’s in a house.

Lu Han and Yifan’s friends are predominantly men, and also predominantly demons, which is to be expected, although several of them have humans with them. For one, the tanned semi-shirtless boy, who Yixing learns is a Korean called Jongin, has a human the same age as Yixing. When Jongin goes to gawk at someone else’s bum, Yixing finally convinces Yifan he’s not going to run away, and he goes and sits with Jongin’s human at the edge of the room, near the buffet table.

Jongin’s human is called Joonmyun and he’s wearing the dullest ensemble in the world; a loose black shirt and trousers. Joonmyun informs him, kindly, that it’s so nobody else looks at him. Yixing thinks that’s incredibly unfair, and says so.

Joonmyun laughs, his eyes crinkling pleasantly. “It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t mind if it makes Jongin feel better.”

Joonmyun seems to adore the younger demon; if the fond looks he’s giving him as he wanders around the room are any indication. Yixing thinks, a little worriedly, that Jongin doesn’t seem to care half as much for Joonmyun as Joonmyun does for him.

He brings it up in an awkward, roundabout way, and Joonmyun laughs again. “He’s harmless, he just looks, and it’s more for show than anything else. He has a reputation to uphold. You see Sehun?” He points out another demon, this one without a companion. He’s a young boy, definitely younger than them, and dressed in a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans. “They have a bet going. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re married.”

Yixing squints at Jongin, trying to work out how old he is. Joonmyun himself is only eighteen, so the idea makes him uncomfortable.

“Time passes differently in the demon world,” Joonmyun says. “Jongin’s a lot older than he looks. The same can be said for Lu Han, though Yifan is actually younger than he looks.”

Yixing isn’t sure he wants to know more. He leaves Joonmyun to sit, relaxed, against the wall and goes to find Yifan.

Yifan is with a tall boy with orange hair and a wide smile on his face. The boy has clearly just told him a joke, because Yifan bursts out laughing—well, he cracks a smile, which is what Yixing assumes Yifan substitutes for bursting out laughing—, and the image is so completely _human_ that Yixing freezes. He’s flummoxed. He’s supposed to hate Yifan and Yifan keeps doing tiny things to make him not hate him so much. It’s a real problem.

Yixing fixes his date personality in place and walks over to loop an arm through Yifan’s.

“Ah!” Yifan says. “Chanyeol, this is Yixing. Yixing, this is Chanyeol.”

“We’re best friends,” Chanyeol says. Yifan raises an eyebrow.

“You just think that,” he says.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Chanyeol says. For all his strange smiling, he’s the most human of all the demons. “Are you Yifan’s boyfriend?”

Yixing blinks at Chanyeol. “Um,” he says. “No.”

“Not yet,” Yifan says at the same time.

Yixing raises an eyebrow at him, but Yifan keeps his face trained on Chanyeol’s. Chanyeol laughs.

“You look good together,” he says, and gives them a thumbs up. “Good luck, Hyungs!” And then he disappears into the crowd, heading towards Sehun and Jongin, who are now standing together, scouring the party for someone.

The next person Yifan leads them to looks younger than Joonmyun. He’s called Jongdae and Yifan tells him that he’s much, much older than he is, for a demon. Jongdae’s Chinese is strained, even though he assures Yixing that he speaks it at home. He also has a human, a Chinese boy much taller than him—almost as tall as Chanyeol, even—, who walks with the air of a martial artist, ready to strike at any time. His name is Zitao and he’s fifteen years old, far too young to have been roped into a marriage contract. Jongdae says, casually, that Zitao was pledged to him from very tiny, and that the demon world is all he knows.

Zitao apparently interacts a lot with Joonmyun, but Yixing is the first other human he’s been allowed to talk to for some time. Yixing shares his nicer memories with him, the ones of the cold air being swept away by his mittens, and ice cream in the summer when he could afford it, and Lu Han’s face in middle school, all smiles and gentleness, and his mother’s face.

“She had the prettiest smile,” Yixing tells him, fondly but also sadly.

In return, Zitao tells him what he knows. He has very few faint memories of where he was born, just vague faces of his parents and friends he had in school, but he has solid memories of demon life. He tells Yixing how his first governess showed up blue, with antlers, and how he’d had nightmares about her for months afterwards. He tells him how Jongdae would buy him ice cream when he was well-behaved. He tells him how he’s been learning wushu all his life and how nothing would make him happier than to compete.

“The demon world is the best thing that ever happened to me,” Zitao ends with. “Jongdae-ge is so nice to me, and he’s always been there for me, at every stage.” His cheeks are pink and Yixing feels slightly uncomfortable because he has no idea how old Jongdae is, only that he’s older than Yifan, and Zitao is basically his little brother and it’s weird that he has a crush on the demon. But maybe things work differently here. Joonmyun had said they aged differently. Maybe that works differently, too. “Gege, you’ll grow to love it, too. Yifan-ge isn’t a bad man, and I’m sure you’ll grow to love him. We always do. It’s kind of—” He flaps his arms around, before he continues with, “—it’s natural. Humans always fall in love with their demons.”

This isn’t really what Yixing wants to hear. “Always?” he asks. Zitao nods.

“I’ve never heard of one who didn’t. And it’s better when you acknowledge it,” he says. “It stops hurting so much.”

It doesn’t hurt for Yixing, not yet, at any rate, but he keeps it in mind throughout the rest of the party, and then, indeed, for the next week afterwards. Zitao said it like he expects it to hurt soon. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’ll be watching for it, he thinks. He’ll be prepared.

\---

It doesn’t take all that long for the pain to settle in.

Well, in actual fact, it’s at least a month, but Yixing thinks that’s an incredibly short time in the spell of a relationship, for a body, heart and mind to fall in love.

This month is spent trying to convince himself that he’s not falling in love. But Yifan is making it very hard.

Yifan slides into what Lu Han informs him is his ‘usual persona’, as apparently the one he’d been wearing for the first two weeks hadn’t actually been his normal self. This one is stoic, business-like and mostly outwardly emotionless, but also kind and even sometimes affectionate. He’s gentle with Yixing, stroking his hair and arms lightly, and sometimes linking their fingers when Yixing lets go of himself enough to allow it. Yifan cares, and it’s clear in everything he does, even if he’s not doing it for Yixing—or overtly, because in the end, everything Yifan does benefits Yixing in some way or other.

Yifan, Yixing learns, is a businessman. He has a demon-run company in their demon world which ultimately hosts shopping centres. He spends a lot of his time away from home, working, which explains why Yixing hadn’t been able to see him often those first few weeks. Yifan often eats out, and he comes home very late.

Yixing doesn’t mind at first. It gives him a chance to screw his head on and think about things, but soon he grows bored. He’s got Zitao and Joonmyun’s phone numbers and he’s allowed to phone them, and so every now and again he rings one of them up, but mostly he talks to Lu Han, who tells him all about his life, and fumbles through the multitude of books that have taken residency in the house.

Lu Han’s life is interesting, Yixing has to admit. He’s apparently thousands of years old, and yet only eighteen. His mother was human, he says, and he was born seven months—give or take a thousand years—before Yifan was. And apparently they’re both young for demons, which is why Lu Han isn’t married yet.

“I’m demon enough to fit with the demons and human enough to fit with humans,” Lu Han tells him. “And because of that, I’m kind of—not the guy you sell your daughters to.”

Instead of answering that, Yixing changes the topic. “How many times have you been to school?” he asks him, frowning. Lu Han always was smart.

Lu Han grins. “More times than you can ever fathom,” he says. “But I never met anyone like you there before.”

Strangely enough, Yixing feels both annoyed and proud to hear that leave the demon’s mouth.

Halfway through the month he’s read every book in the house and has nothing left to talk about with Lu Han. All Lu Han can think to do is ask Yifan to let him out of house arrest.

“At least you can buy more books that way,” he suggests.

This isn’t such a bad idea, and the next time Yifan is home at a sensible time, Yixing broaches the subject with him.

Yifan blinks at him, before saying, “Sure,” and then, a moment later, like he’s tacking it on, “my dear.”

It’s too early, too soon, for Yixing to like that, but he smiles slightly anyway, before heading away.

The next day he leaves the house for the first time. He feels whiter than white, having not seen the sun for so long, and then realises that the demon sun is red. It takes some getting used to, but he has all the time in the world.

Yifan gives him money before he goes, so Yixing takes it down to the bookshop, as he can’t find a library. There he spends over half of it on novels and biographies, and he heads back, arms laden with bags, and proceeds to while away the second half of the month.

The first time he feels the ache in his chest Yifan’s been away for four days, having not even come back to sleep, and Yixing passes it off as loneliness pangs. But once he’s irritated Lu Han for two hours and it still hasn’t gone away, he phones Joonmyun—just to talk. Maybe it’ll help.

It doesn’t help, and soon there’s a throbbing in his chest and a ringing in his ears, dulling the sound.

“What’s wrong?” Joonmyun asks, suddenly alert, as Yixing groans.

“It hurts,” Yixing breathes, fingers against his chest, as he tries to soothe the pain somehow.

“It’s started, then,” Joonmyun says. “That didn’t take long at all. It took months for it to settle for me. Then again, I didn’t live with Jongin for a long time after we were married.”

“Would it help if I went somewhere else?” Yixing asks, coughing.

“No,” Joonmyun says. “It’s like—have you heard of a mate bond?”

Outside of stories? “No,” Yixing says.

“Well, a mate bond is an invisible string that ties two people together,” Joonmyun tells him, sounding for all the world like a teacher Yixing had back home, “and they’re tied together for life. Our marriages are like that. They tie us together. And if you don’t accept that you’re tied together, it hurts.”

“Will it get worse?” Yixing asks, as the throb grows.

“Yes,” Joonmyun says, and Yixing isn’t really surprised. “Eventually it will drive you insane.”

“How do I stop it?”

“You can’t, yet. But go to him,” Joonmyun says. “Being with him should help ease it. He’s been away for four days, hasn’t he?”

Yixing doesn’t love Yifan, or he doesn’t think he does—it’s not even been two months yet, and he still has that memory of the first day in his head. But he cares more about living without pain than his pride, so he agrees, and then asks Lu Han for directions to Yifan’s office.

Lu Han, smirking, gives him them, and then Yixing’s away.

It takes Yixing an hour to find Yifan’s office block, an hour in which the throb persists infuriatingly. Once he gets there, and he climbs all the stairs to get to the right floor, he’s informed that Yifan is in a meeting, and he has to sit there for another forty minutes, knees pulled to his chest, feeling conspicuous and uncomfortable there in the reception area. Demons come and go constantly, delivering things and standing and sitting to wait for Yifan, and Yixing doesn’t feel comfortable there at all. He’d leave if he doesn’t want the ache to go away this much.

The secretary, a young girl with long, dark hair, finally takes pity on him. “You’re the Boss’s human, right?” she asks kindly, and when Yixing nods, she lets him into Yifan’s office, away from the prying eyes of the other people in the room.

He spends the final ten minutes exploring Yifan’s office. There are photos of him and Lu Han on his desk, from when they were much younger, and one that looks fairly recent. There’s a picture of a young woman who Yixing thinks is Yifan’s mother, and another of her with a man who must be the brothers’ father. There are certificates on the wall, proclaiming the business open, and giving Yifan awards for the way he runs the place.

The room is softly furnished in white and blue, with a few personal decorations on the walls and desk tops, and the effect is incredibly human—no different from what Yixing expects to find in a human CEO’s office.

Yixing has finished exploring and has settled down in one of the chairs opposite the desk when Yifan walks in. He doesn’t see Yixing at first because there’s a paper file in front of his face. Yixing squeezes the arms of his chair as his heart speeds up, and he’s not entirely sure he wants to have that kind of reaction, but there’s clearly nothing he can do about it.

“Yifan,” he whines, forgoing any kind of honorific with him.

Yifan moves the file slowly away from his face to look at Yixing. “Hello,” he says, after a pause. He appears to be wobbling on his feet, but his face looks perfect as usual.

“Have you slept at all?” Yixing asks, standing and hurrying over to lead Yifan to a chair. The moment he touches Yifan, the ache in his chest eases a little, seeming to sigh in pleasure, and Yixing knows that he won’t be comfortable until he’s with Yifan.

Yifan settles into the chair and then shuts his eyes. “No,” he says, and stretches his hand out. It takes Yixing a moment to realise what he wants, and then he curves his hand into Yifan’s. This close, Yixing can see that Yifan is caked in makeup, probably to disguise any bags under his eyes that he has.

“You should sleep,” he says softly. Probably without the makeup on his face, but Yixing can’t bring himself to make Yifan clean it off.

“I will now you’re here,” Yifan says quietly in a moment of absolute fondness, and he squeezes Yixing’s hand once before drifting off.

Yixing’s chest seems to purr.

\---

After this, Yixing spends more time at Yifan’s office. Whenever his chest hurts and Yifan isn’t around, he heads there.

It doesn’t take long for Yifan to connect the dots and work out why.

“It’s not because you miss me but because it hurts, right?” he asks. They’re in the bathroom, Yixing sitting on the counters, swinging his legs, and Yifan is reapplying his makeup after following through on his beauty routine. The thing about demons, Yixing learns, is they can transport entire things, like their beauty collection, in one flick of an eye.

Yixing hasn’t asked if he can transport people yet. He thinks that’s a whole new kettle of fish he doesn’t want to get into right now.

Yixing folds his arms at Yifan’s words. “Maybe,” he grumbles.

“It was pretty fast,” Yifan says. “Apparently Lu Han’s mother didn’t get the ache until she was already pregnant.”

Yixing doesn’t want to ask how that works, so he doesn’t. This ache seems rather capricious, if you ask him. “Well, it hurts, so I’m here,” he says.

Yifan nods as he dots at his face with a cotton bud. “Well, that’s not going to stop the ache,” he says, “but it’ll hold it off for a while. But soon it won’t be enough.”

Yixing grimaces. “What’s next?” he asks.

Yifan shrugs. “Ultimately, we get married,” he says. “That’s what it’s moving towards.”

There’s that word again. Yixing has never really thought of himself getting married—well, not without Lu Han, at least. He hasn’t even dated before, and he’s been kissed all of once. He’s not sure how you’re supposed to react, or what you’re supposed to do. He doesn’t remember how his parents were when they were married, only that they were happy together, until his father started drinking, and she grew more and more into herself. He doesn’t want to end up like that. He’s always promised himself that any relationship he’s in will not end up like that.

“Does it want anything more?” he asks, softly.

Yifan doesn’t reply at first, and then he says, “Do you think Jongdae and Zitao have done anything?”

Yixing shudders at the unwelcome thoughts. “I don’t want to think about that,” he says.

Yifan shrugs, and then pulls away from the mirror, beauty routine complete. His beauty collection disappears, and Yixing hopes it isn’t just lying over the counter back home. He sighs regretfully, thinking of all the work he’ll have to do once he’s back home.

And then Yifan kisses him.

It’s light and gentle and Yixing lets himself kiss back—just for a moment, relaxing into Yifan’s body. When Yifan pulls away, Yixing says, “I wasn’t talking that time.”

“I know,” Yifan says, and he walks away, after a quick glance in the mirror to make sure his makeup isn’t smudged.

Yixing hates him, except he doesn’t at all.

\---

They don’t talk about the kiss. Yixing makes sure nobody knows about it, because he can imagine what they’d say. Lu Han would laugh, Joonmyun would ask if he liked it, Zitao would tell him to do it again. And he knows, ultimately, that he would.

But he doesn’t _want_ to kiss Yifan again, or at least he _thinks_ he doesn’t, even though he’s pretty sure he actually liked it. Yifan’s mouth was kind of comforting, which he isn’t sure mouths are meant to be when they’re kissing you. Loving and gentle, sure, but comforting?

Even worse is he’s a man and probably shouldn’t be thinking that way anyway. He doesn’t think he should want to be comforted. But he kind of _does_ somewhere deep down. And the ache liked it. He knows this because it hadn’t come back all afternoon.

He blames Yifan, and then decides that no, he actually blames his father, because if he’d just waited six months Yixing would have been free of him and would never have got into this with this stupid ache and desires to kiss stupid demons. Though his father probably would have sold him anyway, he thinks. He’d never have been free. He’s probably always been fated to marry Yifan, or something.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, a small, treacherous part of himself whispers. And the rest of him agrees.

And there you have it, he thinks. Three months into living with Yifan and Lu Han and his mind has already switched allegiance from Lu Han to Yifan. He likes Yifan, and all his protesting was for nothing, because it was inevitable the whole time.

He’s not terribly surprised to find that his mind and body have conditioned him to like Yifan, because, after all, that’s what was supposed to happen, if Joonmyun and Zitao were anything to go by. He was always going to fall for Yifan. He just didn’t think it would be so quick.

And Yixing is a man, so he doesn’t let himself dwell on things, panicking. Instead, the next day he simply walks into Yifan’s bathroom before his early morning beauty ritual has even begun and says, “Let’s, whatever it is, let’s do it.”

Yifan peers at him inquisitively in the mirror, toothbrush in his mouth. He’s shirtless, and Yixing is pleased to see that he certainly looks human enough. He doesn’t have three nipples, or horns coming out of his chest, or strange-coloured patches of skin. He does, however, have a rather nice line of hair down his chest, disappearing into his boxers. His hair is a mess, in spikes all over his head, and Yixing can see the bags under his eyes. He looks unkempt. Yixing kind of likes it. He runs his hand through Yifan’s hair slightly fondly.

There’s a question in Yifan’s eyes and Yixing sighs. “Why fight it,” he says with a shrug.

Yifan sighs this time and looks away to spit into the sink, rinsing his mouth out, and then he searches through the beauty products without looking, picking up his moisturiser. Yixing realises he’s said something wrong.

“I like you,” he says, trying again.

Yifan stops applying skin products and meets his eyes in the mirror, and Yixing smiles, slightly. Yifan just looks at him, for a moment, before saying, “Okay.” He has a soft smile on his face as well. Yixing thinks he’s probably bouncing off the ceiling inside, but he still allows himself to get annoyed.

“Okay?” Yixing asks, folding his arms, “that’s all you can think of to say? I just said I’d—”

Yifan sighs and kisses him again.

This time Yixing is expecting it, so he kisses back, two months’ worth of aching, and three months’ worth of frustration all rolled into one kiss. He ends up pressed against the wall, Yifan’s body flush against his, tongue in his mouth, which is an entirely unexpected, but certainly not unwanted, conclusion. When they pull apart so Yixing can breathe—he’s not sure demons actually breathe, after all—Yifan rests his forehead against Yixing’s. “Tomorrow?” he asks.

“Just like that? What are weddings even like in this world?” Yixing asks, grumbling.

“You won’t have to wear a dress,” Yifan says, hint of a tease in his voice.

Yixing thinks that’ll have to do.

\---

There is no church. There aren’t even any guests. All they do is walk into a registrar’s office and sign the paperwork. It’s very anticlimactic, though he does get a ring out of it, which he wears on his ring finger dutifully. Yixing feels the dull throbbing ease almost entirely from his chest as the ring slides against his skin—but not completely.

Once they’re back home, Yixing heads away to puzzle about the ache, which feels different—he’s been used to a kind of painful throb, but this is an impatient thrum, wanting something, _needing_ something. He doesn’t know what it could want.

“Lu Han?” he asks, as he pops into the kitchen, to find some girl he’s never seen before—actually, no, on second thoughts, isn’t that Yifan’s secretary?—, on her knees before Lu Han, and Yixing freezes and leaves again, because that was not what he ever wanted to see.

But something in his chest goes, _yes, yes, exactly_ , and he frowns.

He doesn’t phone Zitao, because Zitao is _fifteen_ , and instead phones Joonmyun, as he is wont to do when he gets confused. Joonmyun is a well of good information. He never forgets to remind Yixing he’s been married for a long, long time, and has heard lots of helpful things during his time.

“It still hurts,” he says, when Joonmyun picks up the phone.

Joonmyun is giggling, which he hastens to assure Yixing is not because of him. Yixing has half a mind to hang up. “You are _really_ far along the scale,” Joonmyun says. “I thought so, but I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure. Jongin, stop, he’s— _Jongin_.”

Yixing really has half a mind to hang up. “What scale?” he asks, trying to block out the moaning.

“I told you before, right? The-the— _Jongin_!” he scolds. Yixing can hear him stand up, scramble away. “I’m sorry,” Joonmyun says, a moment later. Yixing can hear faint laughter in the background, probably Jongin’s.

“I can call back later if you want,” Yixing says dutifully, torn between wanting to leave and rinse his ears out and stay to find out what’s wrong with him.

“No, this’ll only take a moment,” Joonmyun says reassuringly. “Usually after you get married the pain goes away for a while, and then it comes back. It takes time, usually. Zitao hasn’t had it yet because he’s so young, and some people never get it. It depends on how much you like the person, how much your body is ready for it.”

The moment Joonmyun mentions Zitao, Yixing knows. He knows exactly what it wants, and he drops to his bed, resting his head in his hands. As Joonmyun finishes talking, it only confirms it for him. “Great,” he sighs. “But _I’m_ not ready.”

“I think you are,” Joonmyun says, “or you wouldn’t sound so weird.”

Yixing wants to shout that that’s because of Lu Han and Joonmyun having sex in places where he can see or hear them, but he doesn’t. “I’m really not.”

“If you weren’t, your body wouldn’t want you to consummate your marriage,” Joonmyun almost sing-songs, and Yixing can _hear_ the smile on his face.

“I hate you,” he says, and Joonmyun laughs.

“Go,” he chirrups, “leave me~. Have fun~!”

Yixing decides to never phone Joonmyun for help ever again.

\---

But Joonmyun is right, as always, when Yixing only lasts two days before he’s jerking himself off in the shower to the thought of Yifan rocking above him and he thinks that this is entirely unfair. He comes entirely too fast, and he rests against the tiles, which have warmed themselves against his back, and swears under his breath.

He somehow manages to last another two days, avoiding Yifan whenever possible, as he tries to work out how to approach the subject with Yifan. He doesn’t want Yifan to laugh at him. He also doesn’t really want to have to resort to asking because that would just make him feel cheap.

In the end it doesn’t matter what ways Yixing thinks he wants, or can cope with, because it just happens—Yifan is in the sitting room, watching a drama, and Yixing is _unfathomably_ hard, because this is _impossible_ , and it’s all he can manage to walk over to Yifan and drop himself so he’s straddling Yifan, erection pressed against Yifan’s stomach, complaining about _stupid demons_ all the while.

“Well, I’m _your_ stupid demon husband—” Yifan is quipping when he stops, and then he looks up at Yixing with surprise in his eyes.

Yixing just looks away, feeling slightly foolish. The drama, forgotten, plays in the background, filling up the silence that spells until Yifan cups Yixing through his trousers.

“Do you want help with this?” he asks, almost unsurely.

“ _Please_ ,” Yixing replies instantly, though he would roll his eyes if he were capable— _no, I just wanted you to see how hard you make me, stupid demon_ —.

Somehow, Yifan manages to stand up, Yixing still wrapped around him, and completely entwined they make their way to Yifan’s bedroom. Yixing is suddenly incredibly glad Lu Han can’t leave the kitchen.

Yixing doesn’t even look at his surroundings, instead letting Yifan place him on the bed, which is a king-sized and has more than enough room for them. They make short work of their clothes, trying not to tease too much. Yifan is half-hard and Yixing reaches out to stroke him, feeling it harden quickly under his fingers.

If he weren’t so hard there are so many things he’d like to do—he wants to suck Yifan off, and he wants to trace his mouth over Yifan’s body, and he wants to try various positions, but right now he’s hard, and he hurts, and he just wants Yifan inside him.

Yifan probes gently, clearly not entirely sure what to do. When Yixing tells him to hurry up, he just tells him he doesn’t want to hurt him. “It’s different, having sex with demons,” he says.

Yixing kicks him for good measure, because he doesn’t want to hear that whilst he’s lying on his back, naked, _waiting_. “Ugh, just get—”

Yifan kisses him and at the same time reaches down to slide a lubricated—when did that happen?—finger inside him. It both hurts and doesn’t hurt, which Yixing presumes is possibly due to the whole _magic_ thing.

Yixing rocks onto Yifan’s fingers impatiently, one hand around himself, the other against his balls. He feels exposed and on show and completely like he doesn’t know what to do and yet he knows _exactly_ what to do, instinctively. He’s never done this before, but somehow that doesn’t matter.

Yifan’s long fingers brush against a part of him that has him keening, curving automatically, and wanting that to happen again. “Yes,” he breathes, impatiently. “Just—”

With no help of anyone’s hands, a moment later there’s a lubricated condom rolled over Yifan and he removes his fingers, much to Yixing’s protests, but a moment later he lines himself up, part of Yixing’s lower half lifted to make the slide easier, and he inches his way inside, slowly, so Yixing can get used to it.

Feeling Yifan inside him is like nothing he’s ever felt before. He feels full, stretched, open, and it does hurt, but it’s more of a pleasant burn. Yifan pulls out a little, and then rocks back in, the slap sounding loud in the room, and Yixing is unable to stop the moan that escapes him at the sensations. Yifan does it again, and Yixing tilts his head back, mouth slightly open, welcoming everything.

The ache inside him seems entirely satisfied, and it fades away completely as his body gets what it wants.

Yifan lifts his leg up more, changing the angle, experimenting. The slide is even easier like this, and he can reach the bundle of nerves that has Yixing quivering again, pants and gasps falling from his lips again and again. Yixing strokes himself more and more as Yifan keeps brushing against it, until he can’t take it anymore, and there’s a familiar feeling pooling in his stomach, a tightening in his balls, and then he comes over his stomach in little spurts.

Yifan bucks into him a few more times, and then he succumbs as well, his thrusts becoming erratic as he rides out the wave. They lie for a few moments, collecting themselves, relaxing and, in Yixing’s case, basking in the feel of an orgasm caused by someone else and not just his own hand, for once.

He doesn’t think he would be opposed to doing that again.

“Was that good?” Yifan asks, semi-self-consciously after he’s pulled out and is lying next to Yixing, a hand over Yixing’s hip whilst he trails his fingers through the come drying on Yixing’s chest, before he blinks and it’s gone, cleaned away by magic.

“Mm,” Yixing purrs, and curls into Yifan’s chest. “Yes,” he says, and then, a moment later, “When’s round two?”

\---

Yixing learns, the next day when he’s still recovering, lying in bed naked with his quilt under his chin, that yes; demons can teleport humans.

He refuses to have sex again with Yifan until the embarrassment of showing up in his board meeting with only his quilt to cover him fades away. Which will be never.

(He caves after a week of absurd puppy-dog eyes, a subscription to the library—they do, in fact, have one, apparently—, and a full dance scholarship to a _human_ university. Who can say no to that?)


End file.
